


Blossom

by Faylinn_Night



Series: Heleus Horizon [11]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Anxiety, Confessions, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Family Secrets, Impossible Things Happen, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Joyful, Love, Making Love, Pathfinder Quarters, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faylinn_Night/pseuds/Faylinn_Night
Summary: Impossible things blossom in the unlikeliest of places.   They thrive--from a successful journey to Andromeda and the war the Initiative finds there to love amongst the indigenous Anagara and the medical miracles that follow.  The Ryder sisters had no idea what sort of pioneers they'd become...





	1. Real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhisperRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperRose/gifts).



> DISCLAIMER: I took logic and "probability", compacted them together, then shot them out the airlock with a beer in hand. I have no regrets and if you dislike the impossible confession Ryder makes, it's all good. This is my fiction. ;P

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He ceased his kisses to meet Riti's gaze, and his weight shifted under her bed sheets as he ran a thumb along her unfeeling scar. "What is wrong, Darling One?"
> 
> His gentleness struck the Pathfinder. Always so attentive, so considerate. He held her wellbeing above his desires, never once let her feel alone or pressured or belittled. To him, she was beyond special. She made his heart sing. And such care left her feeling as if everything she found in Andromeda was a dream.
> 
> "How much do you love me?" she asked.

**J** aal left a trail of hot kisses from Ritika's side-arched neck down to her collarbone.  His mouth electrified her skin with bioelectric zaps, but the usual pleasure that raced to her lower belly had been hindered.  Her heart raced for other reasons, and when she heaved a shuddering breath, she failed to temper its anxiety.  Jaal noticed.

He ceased his kisses to meet Riti's gaze, and his weight shifted under her bed sheets as he ran a thumb along her unfeeling scar.  "What is wrong, Darling One?"

His gentleness struck the Pathfinder.  Always so attentive, so considerate.  He held her wellbeing above his desires, never once let her feel alone or pressured or belittled.  To him, she was beyond special.  She made his heart sing.  And such care left her feeling as if everything she found in Andromeda was a dream.

"How much do you love me?" she asked.

The mauve Angaran reeled for all of a second.  "With everything that I am," he answered in a low, trilling voice, "and all that I have."

"Are you happy?  Here?  With a human, an...alien?"

Riti croaked and Jaal's broad eye ridges furrowed.  He pulled himself up further on the bed to be closer to her face while remaining mindful of where he placed his weight at her side.  He kept supported on one elbow, his lower body flush with hers, but his free hand continued to caress her scar as he mulled over her questions. 

"I love your soul," he answered.  "The body it lives in won't change that. And I find it a beautiful body."

His fused knuckle brushed her breast and hip—proof he didn't find her repulsive—yet she continued, "How far would you follow me?"

"To any galaxy."

"Even if the path ahead was dark?"

"Ritika."  Concern replaced Jaal's assurance, and his galaxy eyes squinted.  "Why the sudden questions? Are you...doubting us?"

"No," Riti replied quickly.  She then licked her fat lips.  "Quite the opposite. I—I need to know you love me. I need to hear your words, your truth."

"Why?  What happened?  Has someone said something to you?"

"Not in the way you're thinking."

"Dearest, I don't under—"

"I'm pregnant."

Time stopped.  Ritika's muscles stiffened.  And Jaal could hardly whisper, "What?"

"I'm—"  Riti swallowed hard. "I'm pregnant. Lexi and SAM both helped confirm it. Jaal."  The Pathfinder raised a hand to her lover.  Her fingertips massaged the sensitive skin between his jawline and neck-flap in hopes of keeping his panic at bay.  "I can honestly say I haven't been with anyone else in this entire galaxy.  It's yours."

"Mine?"

"Yes."

"You are carrying _my_ child?"

"Ye—yes."  Tears strung the woman's eyes, more so when the Angaran became unresponsive above her.  "This is unprecedented," she added in a shaky voice.  "SAM's explanations go over my head, and Lexi wants to write a book.  Something about a leap in evolution or residual something or other.  It's crazy.  Surreal.  Like, I don't—I don't know what I feel.  Or how I should feel.  Then I think what others might say about a hybrid and—"

Jaal silenced his lover with a long, sensual kiss.  It translated so many emotions that by the time it ended, Ritika shook from tears.

"You're carrying my child," Jaal said.  "You're giving me a family."

He smiled; how unimaginable.  Last time Riti had announced her pregnancy, she had been met with snarls, curses, and a biotic force that ended a life before it could truly begin.  Jaal was nothing like Tamir,  though, even if a dark part of Riti's mind warned her that he might change.

"Are you okay with that?" she whispered.  "A hybrid?  Something never seen before?"

Jaal's smile grew.  "Your Initiative came here to be pioneers."

"Alien-Human pregnancy wasn't covered in the brochures."

"No?  Must be a unique perk."

"Jaal..."  Riti trailed off with a weak laugh and more tears.

"Do you not want this child?" the Angara asked, smile falling.

"I do. I—I _really_ do."

"Then damn the skeptics. Our baby is a gift.  My family will see it that way as well."

Riti paled.  "Oh, right. Family."

"We must tell them."

"Can we think about that later?  I've had a hard enough time approaching you."

"Ah."  Jaal's new grin turned sly.  "I believe I approached _you_ tonight."  He gave his lover another kiss, deeper than before.  Riti felt him smile against her lips; the contact tingled like his enthusiasm stimulated his electrostatic discharge.  "You're carrying my child," he said in between lighter kisses.

Riti released a breathless giggle.  "Yes."

" _My_ child."  The Angaran rested a hand below the Pathfinder's pierced stomach.  "Here."

"Yes."

Jaal said nothing further.  Actions spoke for him, and the tenderness in his love-making quieted the disbelief inside Ritika with a realization: Andromeda was real—as real as the electricity that excited her nerves, the pleasant oils that filled her nose, and the trilling voice that whispered sweet nothings in her ear.


	2. Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Get off your fucking high horse," Riti added. The Resistance leader made a face, likely in part to his ignorance of Human idioms. "Do you know how much 'impossible' things have happened in history? Did your ancestors ever believe you'd make contact with not one but multiple alien species? Okay, one of those races turned out to be utter assholes. That's beside the point."
> 
> "Which is?"
> 
> Damn his condemnation. "Impossible shit happens, Evfra. Call them miracles. Flukes. One in a trillion chances. Whatever. It doesn't make them any less real!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Riti's nickname for Evfra is Oscar the Grouch. And she doesn't stand his shit...

**R** itika followed Evfra and Mira into a semi-secluded section of Jareia Station's Gardens.  The area hardly had room for three people, but the youngest Ryder never intended to be found.  She kept a low profile, straining to hear their conversation while hiding behind some alien ferns and shooing aside Jaal, who disagreed with the 'invasion of privacy.'

"Wha—"

Mira cut off Evfra before he finished his question, "I'm pregnant."

' _Direct, Mir,_ ' thought Riti with a grimace.  Then again, she had been nearly as direct when it came to telling Jaal of her own pregnancy.

"Lexi and SAM confirmed; it's yours," the pink-haired Ryder continued.  The words were the same as Riti's confession, but rather than being met with wondrous eyes and a kiss Aya's atmosphere turned chilly.

"You're lying," Evfra seethed.  "There is no _way_ you have my child."

Riti sensed her sister flinch and countered Jaal's shocked expression with a long sigh.  Yeah, maybe she should've warned him that Evfra knocked up Mira.

"You"—Evfra's voice raised into a bellow—"you unfaithful... _vesataan_!"

"Jaal, what's a vesataan?"

The mauve Angara floundered for words.  "Uh..."

' _Vesataan would the Angara term for slut that Mira told you about, Pathfinder,_ ' SAM interjected.

"Oh.  Alright."

Ritika's biotics flattened the ferns between her and the couple.  Their continual crunching reflected her rage as she stood and its power beat against Evfra—not enough to move him but enough to remind him she could toss his tiny ass off the station with a hand swipe.

"She _isn't_ lying," Riti said.

Evfra reclaimed his slack jaw.  "How is this your business?"

"She's my sister; everything she does is my business."

"We do have limits," Rashmi added.  She rounded Jaal, Liam soon after.  Evfra's purple-blue eyes narrowed; seemed he still disliked the crew's attention.

"Get off your fucking high horse," Riti added.  The Resistance leader made a face, likely in part to his ignorance of Human idioms.  "Do you know how much 'impossible' things have happened in history?  Did your ancestors ever believe you'd make contact with not one but multiple alien species?  Okay, one of those races turned out to be utter assholes.  That's beside the point."

"Which is?"

Damn his condemnation.  "Impossible shit happens, Evfra.  Call them miracles.  Flukes.  One in a trillion chances.  Whatever.  It doesn't make them any less _real_!"

"You would say that."

"What's that mean?"  The pressure behind Riti's biotics increased.  "Just face it.  Ever since Mira hooked up with you, she's been more stable, happy.  She doesn't want anyone else.  Just you.  And she's pregnant."

Evfra bared his teeth.  "You expect me to believe—"

"Know what, Oscar?  I'm pregnant too!"  The Pathfinder took pleasure in how the violet Angara paled.  Sharps gasps sounded behind her, and someone dropped their drink—possibly Liam or a random Aya bystander.  However, the crowd's alarm was small fry compared to her main catch: Evfra's attention.  "That's right.  I'm pregnant.  Ask Jaal."

Jaal squeezed his lover's bicep yet kept quiet.  Fine; Riti would keep matters in her own hands then.

"Lexi and SAM would be more than happy to send over the paternity tests," she continued.  "Just because you can't wrap your closed mind around the concept doesn't mean Mira cheated on you.  She's bounced around before.  Not since you, though."

"That isn't helping her case," Rash said.

"It's a good point.  That's what makes you special, Evfra."  Riti's eyes found her eldest sister.  Tears rolled down the hothead's flush cheeks, and she shook with uncharacteristic fear.

"Special?" Evfra repeated the word like it was poison on his tongue.  He sent Mira a cursory glance, as if she deserved less, then fought Ritika's biotics until he stood toe-to-toe with her.  "Whatever she's carrying isn't _mine_ ," he spat.  "And whatever you're carrying isn't _his_."

Jaal wrapped a protective arm around Riti.  "Evfra, she has no reason to lie to me."

"You'll see the truth, Jaal.  When the child is born, either of them, you'll see.  Aliens are filthy."

Evfra turned his back, both physically and emotionally.  Riti held no blame for how Mira sunk to the Garden floor in sobs.  Despite the muttering crowd, Liam's gawk, and Jaal's concern, she and Rash pulled their sister up and hugged her as if they were the only three in existence.


	3. Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mira takes Evfra's rejection hard...

**R** itika had seen enough; she stormed towards Mira's unkempt bed, set flush against the partition that separated the hothead's space from her little sisters'.  "Up," she demanded.

Mira glanced through disheveled hairs from inside her blanket cocoon.  Her red-eyed stare spoke volumes of annoyance.  Any other outside the Ryder family would've lacked the nerve to press the matter, but Riti kept a goal in mind and knew that below the facade laid a broken woman.

"Up," Riti repeated.  She reached for her older sister, only for Mira to wiggle backward.

"Leave me alone," she grumbled.  Her voice was hoarse, a testament to her true feelings.

"You can't cry in here forever, Mir."

"I ain't crying."

"So you _weren't_ thinking about Evfra?"

The pink-haired Ryder flinched.

"Thought so," Riti added.

"It's my business," Mira countered.  Her eyes narrowed into golden slits.  "Why don't you just go play house with your perfect little lover boy and gush over what joy it'll be to give him spawn?"

The words stung deeper with each one that passed, although Riti's expression remained lax.  She knew Mira hurt, that the eldest triplet harbored an understandable jealousy and deemed herself unworthy of being happy.  She always had ever since Omega.  Yeah, she had a right to be angry, just as Riti had a right to pull her sister by her wrapped feet.

"What the fuck?" Mira cried.  She squirmed, except her shield backfired by keeping her restrained.  "Where the hell is the edge of this thing?"

"You need help," Riti said, continuing to pull.

Mira managed to free an arm, which anchored her to the edge of her bad.  "A girl can't take a nap in peace?"

"This isn't a nap."  Riti's socks slid forward as she leaned back and she remembered how many arm wrestling matches she had lost over the years.  "It's a pity party!"

"Fuck you!"

"No, fuck Evfra!  Then again, that's the whole reason you're in this mess!"

All tension released, sending Riti flailing back with stings from the beads along her numerous purple braids.  Whether Mira let go of her leverage to hit her younger sister or because the truth stung went unknown.  The pink-haired Ryder fell on top Riti, feet-to-face, and Riti thanked the Lord the beds were low to the ground.  She took care while using her biotics to turn her sister around then, once upright, sat Indian style amidst the clothes strewn haphazardly throughout Mira's space.

"Hey," Riti started.  Mira kept her vision downcast; it was enough to tighten Riti's gut.  "Mir...I'm sorry, okay?  I'm sorry Evfra doesn't understand like Jaal does."  Mira's jaw tensed as her sister continued, "He'll see.  When the baby is born, he'll see.  Until then you've gotta get better."

"Better?" Mir whispered.

"It won't do your kid any good to go around refusing help."

"Point?"

Riti growled under the hothead's snide stare.  "Some people want you healthy, you know?"

"I'm healthy."

"No, you aren't.  We may not be Evfra, but...you aren't alone.  You've never been alone.  Not in the womb, in childhood, Omega, and not here.  We want to get you through this."

"What?  The pregnancy?"  Mira scoffed.  "Pretty sure my body will take care of that.  Thanks."

"At what cost?"

"Huh?"

"Look around.  Look at you.  How do you expect to take care of a kid when you can't even take care of yourself?"  

Riti felt her heart skip a beat.  She poked an Enoch with the accusation and braced for a hit that never came.  So, Mira had been considering the same thing?  Good.

"You killed Marcus long ago," Riti added.  "Then you continued his abuse on your own.  I know how he made you feel, what he made you do, why you're like this, and I know that pain needs to be mended before you meet this."  The purple-haired Ryder placed a gentle hand against her sister's belly over the blanket then the other on her own stomach.  They had hardly grown in size, yet Riti felt the energy inside them, where Andromeda's first hybrids grew.  "If Evfra can't see how special he or she is, that's his loss.  Not ours.  This baby is your priority now.  We have no idea what to expect.  And you have to be scared.  I am.  A lot."

Tears slipped down Ritika's cheeks.  She shook alongside her sister and gathered her hands, so they rested on her knee.

"I—I'm no good at that," Mira uttered towards the floor.  "Not being a mess."

"All we're asking is that you try.  If not for us then for your baby."

"How?"

"Talk with Lexi."  Mira's fingers twitched in her sister's grip, which tightened.  " _Talk_ , Mir.  It doesn't matter where or how long it takes.  Cut out that bad to make room for...If you don't get better..."  Riti lost her words.  Her tears increased when she pulled her sister close for a hug, more so as the older Ryder returned the act increasingly.  "I love you, Mir.  Everyone on this ship does."

"Yeah," Mira muttered into Riti's shoulder, "I know."

"Our babies will love you too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

With a heavy heart, Ritika heard her sister gulp; it was a loud noise in her ear, outmatched only by the sobs that filled Pathfinder Quarters.


	4. Tamir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ritika opens up to Jaal about her horrible ex and a guilt she will forever carry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is heavy, ya'll. Prepare.

**J** aal's smile was infectious.  Even as Ritika fought off a migraine from insomnia and a deep ache ran up her back, she returned the gesture from her bed aboard the Tempest.  She leaned, half asleep against her pillows as the mauve Angaran crafted sewed fabric at the foot of her bed.

"What was that called again?" she asked.

Jaal glanced sideways with wonder-filled eyes.  "A Roftiir," he said, rolling his 'R.'  "It's similar to my Rofjinn, only longer, enclosed to keep the child warm."

Riti laid a hand on her belly.  Child—the word still sounded surreal.  For weeks she had convinced herself that her swollen stomach attributed to nothing more than PMS, but without any spotting and Lexi's insistence on monitoring the Ryder sisters, Riti had slowly begun to accept her new reality.

"Ah!"  Jaal jerked his fused hand back, and his lover sucked on her lips to keep from laughing.

"Yo—you okay?" she asked.

"Yes.  Though I can't say the  same for this."  The Angaran lifted his work.  Best Riti could describe it was as a decorative potato sack with six sides, only two of them even.  "I've never made one before, not even for my nieces or nephews.  You can see why."

The laughter in the young woman's throat left in a sudden burst.  She pressed both forearms against her stomach, which budged from humor and a six-week-old hybrid.

"Well," Jaal added, "traditional Roftiir require a joint seam to account for Angaran legs, but..."  His gaze fell like Riti's smile.

Both felt unsure of what traits their child would inherit.  Angara and Humans had many things in common; leg types were not one of them.  Would its legs stretch straight or be disjointed?  Would it have one, two, three, or more knees?  Would it even be able to walk?  Would it be teased for the possible abnormalities?

The young woman swallowed thickly then glanced down.  "Who knew I'd grow an alien among aliens, eh, little guy?" she asked.

Warm fingers descended over Ritika's belly in an instant.  They found their way under the hem of her shirt—as they often did—and Jaal's lips followed not long after.

"My deevan, my child," he murmured against her stretched skin, "no matter your image, your trails, your faults, or persecution, know you will want for nothing in a galaxy your parents helped free from Kett.  You mark a new dawn in many ways, and I will protect you with my life."

Tears slipped down Riti's cheeks.  A few at first until they dripped from her chin, drawing Jaal's attention with spots along his prominent eye ridge.  His gentle, galaxy gaze shook his lover's shoulders, left her trembling under the weight he took care in keeping off her abdomen.

"Darling One," he started.  His touch was painfully soft and riled a staggering sob from the Pathfinder.  "Ritika."  Panic tainted Jaal's deep voice, but Riti hadn't the strength to lift her face.

"You're still excited," she whispered through chattering teeth.  "You...you still want it."

When the Angara shifted, he pushed back sections of Riti's purple braids, saying, "Why would I not?  A child is a blessing."

"My first wasn't."

"What?"

Riti closed her eyes.  If Jaal looked at her with even a fraction of the pain felt behind his question, her tight throat would render her mute.  She swallowed again, though it did nothing to clear her airway, and pulled the Angara's hand to her exposed stomach.  She needed the warmth, the pressure, the love, an anchor to keep her grounded to the present, not horrible memories from dark times.

"Remember," she started, "when I told you about Omega?"

"Yes," Jaal spoke in a measured tone.

"Re—remember I said I had an ex there?"  The air tensed; guess the Angaran understood that his lover resolved to tell him everything she had held back before.  "Tamir."  Riti gagged at the name.  "Mi—Mira had a hard time, too.  That place messed us up, and I—I don't know how she shouldered so much.  The pain.  The uselessness.  The guilt.  Tamir...Tamir—"

"Thon rev, Darling."

God, Jaal's tenderness made Riti ache, even more so since she understood his Angaran phrase as the kindest form of reassurance, and her fat lips quivered with her next words, "I was young, stupid, _so_ stupid.  Seventeen.  Sure I could handle Omega.  I thought I was strong enough for Mira, to lend her strength.  I didn't want her alone, but she spent so much time with Marcus sometimes, I—"

The young woman's nose began to sting.  She felt dirty for the first time in Jaal's hold and feared no amount of soap could make her feel clean again.

"I met Tamir at Afterlife," she continued.  "He was suave, handsome, the kind'a guy who women clamored over.  And he loved my voice.  He was always requesting me, even when I was off work.  Tipped well.  Praised me.  When he asked me out, I considered myself lucky, but...the luck wasn't good at all."

Jaal tensed in his hold around Ritika, maybe in part to her curled fists.

"He abused me, Jaal.  Isolated me, held me down, made me bleed, told me I'm _nothing_ without him."

"Rit—"

"No.  Listen, please.  He lied to me.  Used me.  Broke me.  And I was dumb enough to believe it was my fault.  That pain...that was all on him.  My baby, though?  That was on _me_."

Memories struck Riti in snort snippets: an overheated room, Omega's station's oily stank, satin sheets wrapped around her bare body, and the sound of her ribs cracking against a wall.

"Stupid me thought maybe if I told him, things would change," she croaked.  "I couldn't go home pregnant.  I hadn't even graduated school.  And Tamir had the funds to care for us.  We—we were supposed to be okay.  It was his baby, right?  He had to care.  He should've cared.  It was his _baby_!"

Riti's scream hurt Jaal; she saw it in his tear-stained face and the way he pulled her towards him by the shoulders.  However, she locked her elbows when her palms met his Rofjinn to keep them separated.  She couldn't fold.  Not yet.  Jaal had to hear the rest of the story and the only way to continue would be to recall latent anger she had buried almost a decade ago.

"He—he didn't smile or jump for joy or tell me what a wonder I was.  He accused me of sleeping around.  Said he only used protection, but what did that drunk-ass care when in the mood?  He acted like his shit never stunk, and he _crushed_ me!  Crushed _us_.  And I can _never_ give that child another chance at life.  I'm awful, Jaal; I got my baby _killed_!  How can you stand...?"  Hot sobs cut off the remainder of the Ryder's rant.  The lump in her throat felt like she had swallowed a golf ball that inflated to a softball when Jaal kissed her.

"I love you," he whispered.

The electric tingles in her mouth lingered as he brought his thin lips to her wet cheeks and sent jolts through her nerves when gathered her atop his bowed legs.  She meant to push him away—she still felt filthy—but his strength overpowered her.  He said nothing more, only held her as she lamented a life lost and let his body encircle her and their child.

**Author's Note:**

> While I can't make this a full-length story, I figured I could at least collect all the pregnancy-related drabbles for convenience. :)


End file.
